


i will be married to silence, the gentleman won't say a word

by sarrysar



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, i guess, open ending :-) interpret it however you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 22:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18837832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarrysar/pseuds/sarrysar
Summary: Wataru is always goddamn smiling, when Fine wins, when they lose, when the things he fought for are washed away by the tides of revolution, when Eichi is rushed to the hospital, when he returns twice as terrifying. Things are fucked sideways, and Wataru is smiling, smiling, smiling for hours on end.





	i will be married to silence, the gentleman won't say a word

_The secret to smiling:_

Wataru Hibiki learns it at age ten, simply by observation. Smiles, he thinks, are a curious thing. He sees many – smiles made of hard, angry lines, smiles that are kind and soft but never quite reach the eyes, smiles that tremble in the corners of people's mouths but never really reach the surface – but doesn't trust any. None of it is the real deal. The trick is in the eyes, he thinks, staring at his own reflection in the mirror. The corners of his mouth go up, up, up until it hurts but it still isn't quite good enough.

He grins from ear to ear, scrunching up his eyes. If it touches the eyes it's real, he decides. Your job isn't done until you see the wrinkles.

_The prologue:_

There are so many kinds of smiles in Yumenosaki Academy, Wataru doesn't have enough fingers to count them all. Akehoshi's smile, always plastered across his face like a signature. His eyes, though, only light up from time to time, when Trickstar are singing or when Yuuki says something funny. Narukami's smile, trained until it was the epitome of prettyness, until no one would question it. The still hopeful smiles on first years – those kind of smiles are diamonds in rough, the kind of diamonds that get crushed in this place.

 „Club president,“ Hokuto looks up from his script, shoots him an quick no-nonsence glance. „Can you stop smirking at me? I can't read like that.“

Wataru isn't smirking. He's smiling a perfect smile, an unrepeatable masterpiece, eyes sparkling with genuine glee.

„Hokuto-kun!“ he shouts dramatically, pretending to swoon. „Hokuto-kun, Hokuto-kun, won't you ever smile back at me?“

Hokuto's smile never even comes close to the eyes, a practiced grimace that flashes awkwardly across his sharp features.

Hokuto thinks, Wataru is always goddamn smiling, when Fine wins, when they lose, when the things he fought for are washed away by the tides of revolution, when Eichi is rushed to hospital, when he returns twice as terrifying. Things are fucked sideways, and Wataru is smiling, smiling, smiling for hours on end.

He doesn't really care what the masked freak thinks. Still, not even he can help being curious from time to time. Once per club meeting he allows himself a single second to wonder. What he's smiling at, what he might be thinking, if he and the Emperor are really in love like they say.

There might be nothing in Wataru's smiles, but that nothing is his alone.

_How it started:_

The Emperor is always smiling, too.

Wataru is sitting on the bench alone when he catches him off guard, and he almost doesn't have the time to grin. He stares at the boy who sits next to him, crosses his legs left-ankle-over-right-knee and folds his hands politely in his lap. The five oddballs were the first real family Wataru ever knew – not because he didn't have to act for them, but because he _could_ act for them while knowing they knew it was an act, that it was an art, a gift for them and them alone to make them smile too – and Eichi Tenshouin takes that picture and smashes it into ten thousand sharp little bits.

„That was a very masterful performance, Hibiki-kun,“ says the Emperor. „I simply _had_ to come and congratulate you personally.“

Wataru laughs at this. „As long as you enjoyed it, though I was on the losing side my work here is done, your highness!“

The Emperor laughs as well, a hollow chuckle that echoes in his lungs. „You're not like the rest of them, Hibiki-kun.“

Through all this, Wataru is staring at the Emperor's smile like it'll tell him something. That little smile that never moves even when he's talking, crinkling the corners of his snake eyes, the flash of hospital-white teeth and its _real, real, real,_ the realest smile Wataru's ever seen and he loves him for it, just a little.

_More clearly:_

The Emperor is smiling.

He says, „Join Fine.“

_How it actually started:_

Wataru is playing piano for the Emperor. He can only play what he learned, not compose new songs like that boy from Knights or the people the Emperor hires to write Fine's songs – but it's a wide array of cheerful tunes, and they seem to please the Emperor. He'll sit in the empty music room late at night after a long day of Wataru-doesn't-want-to-know-what and he'll say „Hibiki-kun, won't you play for me?“

Wataru would be turning him down every day if it wasn't for his expression when he closed his eyes and listened – eyes close, head falling back a little, lips parted, the smile wavering just a little. There was something so very human in it.

Wataru begins to follow him every day just to see that tear in the fabric, that tiny hole in the dam, the tiny huff of pain that escapes the Emperor when he collapses into his chair in the council room. He plays every song he knows once, twice, three times. He writes jokes into the exchange diary. He does his tricks – _look, look, what's that behind your ear_. And the students whisper and sneer, say that only the lowliest of the low would chase after _him_ , but they don't know what the truth is, the unspoken truth in Eichi's eyes as he listens, watches, laughs, the yearning.

„My Wataru,“ he says. _It's your Hibiki Wataru,_ isn't it what he always preaches anyway?

„What's the name of this song you just played?“ Eichi's knuclkes are just a little bit too white where he's clutching his notebook, his voice just a little too breathy.

„I believe it's called _endless symphony,_ “ Wataru plucks at the keys, a high note, a higher note. „Do you like it?“

„I think,“ says the Emperor, suddenly sounding a little disturbed. „I rather love it.“

He smiles, then. And it's not the Emperor smiling, it's Eichi smiling, it's such a different smile, sudden and not very pretty and very, very seventeen-years-old.

_What you could do:_

Imply that it means nothing to him. That he just wants to make people show him a real smile for his own sake, to feel like a beloved clown. That he doesn't care if the Emperor is human after all, insinuate that he was tricked into doing this, by a gross thing, a traitor, a liar.

Pretend like you don't see how fascinated he is by your act, like the world is not a stage and he's not the insatiable audience clapping, clapping, clapping, asking for more, more _more._

_Another thing you could do:_

It's a bad idea.

If you teach the Emperor to play the endless symphony, you're going to start falling in love with him, and one day you'll lose your balance.

If your act falls, you'll burn.

  _Not falling in love with him:_

They're playing a symphony for four hands. Eichi is nothing if not the most devoted student.

„My Wataru, how happy I am to have you.“, and Wataru's chest squeezes a little

They're in the student council room and Eichi frowning above his paperwork and Wataru pulls a coin from behind his ear to amuse him.

„My Wataru, how happy I am to have you,“ and Wataru's chest squeezes a little.

They're on stage and no one in the audience makes a sound while Fine performs, no one dares to make one. Wataru grabs Eichi's hand and twirls him around, wonders if they'll let him get away with it

„My Wataru, how happy I am to have you,“ and Wataru's chest squeezes a little.

Eichi collapses on a hot summer day and Wataru carries him to the infirmary and he's not even sure who he's smiling for now.

„My Wataru, how happy I am to have you,“ and Wataru's chest squeezes a little.

They're in the tall grass behind the school. Eichi is sitting on his jacket, and Wataru's head is in his lap, stroking his hair half-mindedly. Wataru briefly wonders if Eichi knows how to kiss. The reality of it, the shame. How no one moved for full ten seconds after Eichi's head hit the floor, the thought dancing in the back of his head, _would some of them heave a sigh of relief if he didn't get up again?_

Wataru stares up at Eichi and wonders if Eichi's little smile is for the others of maybe for himself, wonders if he's aware of the truth too. Truthfully, he can't picture Eichi knowing how to kiss, can see him reaching for his lips with the knuckles of his pale, cold fingers, just to see what it would feel like. He never imagined love would feel like that, like wanting to put someone back together but also pry loose all their secrets, bare th parts that others will never know exists. There's something in wondering if your beloved is a human.

Sometimes Eichi falls asleep in his chair in the council room, and then Wataru is sure he's quite human. _You whimper in your sleep,_ he considers telling him, and I'm sorry I know that. I wish I knew what you're having nightmares about so I could learn a trick for it.

He never does any of it, though. He smiles at him. He flicks his wrist, and pulls a rose out of his sleeve. Eichi is smaller than Wataru ever remembers him being, pulls his knees to his chest and clutches the rose, his chest rising and falling steadily, and then he pulls Wataru closer and sobs into his shoulder. It's an awkward hug, a bony tangle of arms and hair and it's so, so desperate, like someone who's been imagining how it would feel to be held for a thousand years or more.

Wataru doesn't cry – he never cries, he's always smiling – he says, _there, there, my emperor_ and pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, another, a whole string of them. Eichi blows his nose and then buries his face into the crook of Wataru's neck.

He _could_ cry too, out of frustration or hopelesness. He knows the Emperor wouldn't mind – seeing the person underneath the mask, touching him, getting to know him. Maybe it would comfort him. Maybe he would even like him, like him more than the act, demand that Wataru stops acting at all, and that would be unthinkable, a million times worse

So Wataru whispers, _shh, your highness, your most loyal jester will stay with you until the end._

Which is not a very long time, it becomes evident. But if he said it out loud he'd definitely stop smiling.

_A full and coherent explanation:_

„I'm in love with you,“ says the Emperor,the words are falling out of his mouth so awkwardly and he looks terrified, looks like he's about to topple over, this boy who burned and devoured the dreams and futures of so many, trembling at a cheesy, messy love confession. They're in Fine's practice room and Tori and Yuzuru could barge in any second, catch their king red-handed.

„Come again,“ Wataru's smile is still plastered across his face, eyes glisten in the dark. „My apologies, your highness, I think I must have misheard you.“

„I'm in love with you,“ repeats Eichi, a bit more firmly, and then again a bit more uncertainly. „I'm in love with you, Wataru. That's all.“

„Surely you jest.“

„I'm _not,_ “ Eichi's voice has a higher, more desperate note. „You're the – you're the only one who – the only one who ever –„ he scrambles for words he never had to use. „You're wonderful, you make me smile, you make me – _feel things,_ that I previously deemed unnecessary, feelings I never thought I'd find after what I decided to do, I _love_ you, I –„

„You're _not!_ “

Eichi steps back.

Wataru's face is blank and perfectly still, there's no theatricals to the words, no metaphors or singing or ways to make the desperation in them beautiful.

„You're not in love with me, Eichi,“ Wataru says and how different his voice sounds when it's used how it's meant to be used. „You like my music. You like my jokes. You just see what I want you to see.“

„Do you think I don't know that?“ Suddenly he's not a crying, dying boy anymore, he's the Emperor and he tilts his head to the left studiously. „Do you think I can't see you, too?“

Eichi brought down the Oddballs, and Knighs, and Valkyrie. Reading actors is his second nature, but only because he is one too, he has always been one.

„Then you must know how to spot fake smiles,“ Wataru says bitterly, staring into Eichi's pale lips, wondering about the same old thing.

„I think,“ Eichi says, reaching for his face,“ They're the only real thing in the world.“

_What could happen if you kiss him back:_

It's been a little under three years since Rei last saw Wataru.

Alright – that's a lie – he's seen him on magazine covers and later in colorful illustrations about the former idol switching to the makeup industry – but on pictures and on TV he's always smiling brightly as always, long hair swishing behind him as he walks ten feet above the ground.

The man who sits down next to rei in the expensive, pretty restaurant, is dragging himself across the floor. He hasn't aged much, but his hair is cropped short, just above his shoulders. The expensive coat sits on him awkwardly, like a sheet on a ghost and there's a tattoo of angel wings on his forearm, on his finger, on the back of his hand.

He smiles, a weak and small expression, and Rei's heart sinks to the place where it sunk a thousand times before, reserved for the broken dreams of his long lost friends.

„Hey,“ says Rei. „It's been a while.“

„It has,“ Wataru's smile stretches a little, a little closer to comfort. „You look well,“

„So do you,“ Says Rei, though it's more than half a lie. Then they talk about the industry. And Rei's leather jacket. Shu's newest collection comes up and one of them says _we have to gather all the oddballs one of these days again_ like they always say but never do.

„How's Kaoru,“ Wataru will say later, and Rei will say, _he's well._ Wataru doesn't have anyone for Rei to ask about. How long has it been now? Three years? Four? Rei made an apology and stayed home drinking instead of going to the funeral.

_What could also happen if you kiss him back, and if the world decides to be kinder:_

Wataru is standing in a garden full of roses and he's marrying a man dressed in white who's smiling slightly, all the way up to those icy blue eyes that see through all acts and applaud the skill of the actor. The man who was once called Emperor takes a step forward, leaning on the arm of the younger pink-haired boy dressed in a frilly suit and he's walking towards Wataru and Wataru is _sure_ this is a mirage now because he's never been this hopeful, never _allowed_ himself to be this hopeful.

„You look amazing,“ Wataru breathes out and his face is moving on its own accord, smiling so wide it hurts.

He dives further into the fantasy. There's no more Emperor, just Eichi Tenshouin, they leave this school and go far away where no one knows them, where they can be anything they want to be.

Further. They're married, They adopt a child, Tori and Yuzuru might be there too, and the Oddballs just a few houses away, there within the reach of his arm.

Further. Nothing ever hurts at all. And _this is what I meant, this is the Amazing I was looking for –_

_What actually happens:_

Wataru is kissing Eichi and it's the most terrifying thing he's done in his life, far scarier than any stunt or trick, far, far scarier than fighting Eichi had been. Eichi doesn't know how to kiss at all but Wataru finds that neither does he and it's chaste and awkward and not at all like what a kiss between two forces of nature should look like.

Still, it's a flawless tragicomedy, a masterful performance from beginning to end, just like everything here. The actors intertwine their hands and bow and the curtain drops.

_The secret to smiling:_

Wataru and Eichi learn it at age eighteen.


End file.
